Omaha daily bee., 1887-05-08
An Unhappy Crowd.

Information regarding the American
colony of brlbe-takers, embezzlers and
defaulters in Canada represents them as
being anything but happy crowd. A
few of the more hopelessly conscience.
less and utterly shameless among them
affect degree of indifference to the dis
grace which they cannot help feeling,
and mingle with men in apparent con-
tentment, but the largest number seek
seclusion and nurse their misery as much
as possible away from the world. A cor
respondent who has recently inquired
into the habits of the colony in Montreal
reports that most of its members are
conducting themselves very quietly and
unobtrusively. They 20 to and
from their places of abode by
side doors and through little travelled thor
oughfares, as If conscious that all men
know their guilt. Three of the boodlers
who would be welcomed by the authori-
ties of New York. were found to take
their meals even IN a private apartment.
being willing to pay an extra charge in
order to avoid the gaze of other guests of
the hotel. They avoid new acquaint-
ances, as criminals who do not desire to
extend the knowledge of their crimes.
They manifest continually the presence
OF guilty conscience by exercising ex-
traordinary precautions against the in
yaslon of their retreats By strangers.
Somc of them seek relief in the wine
cup, which brings its own prualty, al
though it may for time silence the &C.
cusing voice of conscience. But all lead
to life of dull and irksome monotony.
which grows every day more
''stale, flat and improbable" except
for the hard labor involved, these men
might as we'll be in Sing Sing as in Mon.
treal for all the satisfaction that life af.
fords them.
1t is then, after all, pretty severe PEN
atty which the criminals are serving.
There are few punishments harsher than
to be abroad in the world and friendless;
to gonbout among men afraid to be
known of them lest they spurn you; to
be haunted continually with a sense of
guilt, and with the fear that others are
! aware Of it; to feel that somehow your
crime is written on your face where
every man may read it; to know that you
have nothing TO commend you to respect
or to sympathy; to understand that you
arc shut out from the companionship OF
honest men, and must find it if all only
with those as criminal rs yourself This il
the position of tho American rogues who
are Sojourning ia Canada, and. it is con
ceivaplc that they might find life more
tolerable within the walls OF = prison
away from the inqusitivo eyes Of tht
world, where useful employment would
give them something else to think abou
besides their crimes, and perhaps east
the lashings of conscience by the refec
ton that they were doing that which
would in part repay the wrongs they hat
committed. 1t Is certain that they woult
come forth from term OF service il
prison with better claim to the world
friendship ant help than they can hav
as refugees from Justice.
It may DC supposed that boodiers In al
circumstances are subject in somo dc
gree to the punishment which come
from sense OF their rascality
The bribe-giver and the tribe
taker is not wholly relieved q
this because his misdeeds have not bee
made paten, to the world, and he 10 sti
permitted 20 wear tho cloak of honest
and uiingle with honest men. Il woul
be to rcnounce iaitL in conscience to a
scias tha: sIca men, in the moments Z
intros tection that come to all. are nj
| touched with come paags Of rcmorse an
do not coufess to themselves in what COL